India Through The Lens Of Three Key States !
18.3.25
BY
R.K. MISRA
Past
pulverizes but future fascinates. If one harks back to bygones, the other is a
harbinger of hope. No wonder predictors remain in high demand, from the
commoner to the cash rich and street side palmists to gold gilded astrologers,
even face and forehead readers.
Knowledge soaked academics and cost conscious corporates are not left
behind either. They too fall back on their ‘neural networks’ and ‘decision
trees’ for studiedly predictive models.
One such study undertaken by a threesome of
impeccable academic credentials sizes up three Indian states-Gujarat, Bihar and
Tamil Nadu- and predicts their growth trajectory over the next 25 years.
The study released in February 2025 and
titled “The Challenge of contrasted regional dynamics” focusses on India and
has been carried out by Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot, a senior fellow on India at
Institut Montaigne, an independent think tank based in Paris. He is also a
Senior research Fellow at CRI(Centre de recherches internatinales) a Sciences
Po Paris, Research Director at the CNRS(Centre nationale de la recherché
scientifique) and professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the Kings India
Institute(London).He has been Global Scholar at Princeton University, and
visiting professor at Columbia University, Yale and SAIS(John Hopkins).One
needs to call a halt, lest one exhaust the word limit of this column on
introducing the distinguished author. Teaming up with him on this study is
Vignesh Rajamani.a post-doctoral research fellow of Indian and Indonesian
Politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean
Studies, Leiden and Neil Bharadwaj who studies at Delhi University. This study
has been initiated by the Institut Montaigne.
The Institut foresees the possibility of
India appearing as an ideal partner in countering the emergence of a U.S.-China
duopoly and has thus chosen to explore whether it is a mere illusion or a
credible prospect. Following the same methodology that it initiated to study
Russian and China in 2024, it has selected four themes that captures the main
challenges India must address; food security, environmental sustainability,
industrial development and regionalism.
The analysis of food insecurity underscores
the urgency of diversifying India’s agricultural production and modernizing its
value chain to combat malnutrition towards truly sustainable development. The
examination of environmental transition identifies a set of priority actions to
address India’s triple crisis of water, air and forest degradation.
According to Marie- Pirre de Bailliencourt,
managing director of the Institut, in early 2025 the analysis has been extended
to two additional challenges that will shape India’s trajectory. The first
examines the ambitions of the “Make in India” initiative in the light of the
persistent weaknesses in the country’s manufacturing sector. The second
examines economic policy disparities among Indian states and their implications.
It is pertinent to note that India is as
large as the European Union (EU) and, with its federal structure, has as many
states as EU has Member States. Each state of the Indian Union has its own
language and the Hindi belt states are the only part of the country to share a
common idiom.
The report also notes the sharp contrast
between the Hindi speaking North and the South. This division also lingers in a
sharp political divide: while the ruling party governs many states in the
north, it holds no power in the South. Going beyond the North-South dichotomy,
the west also figures, in view of the key role of two of its states,
Maharashtra and Gujarat. Thus it is that the study attempts to show how three
states from three different regions illustrate three development
strategies-with clear implications for potential foreign partners.
The study notes that even if the Narendra
Modi government has promoted centralization since it came to power in 2014,the
states still have considerable margin to implement their own policies in
infrastructure(roads, ports etc), education (at primary and secondary level at
least),health and all sectors of the economy including agriculture and
industry. Among the Hindi belt states, Bihar is known as the poorest although
its situation is not terribly different from other north Indian states
including Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh-which with 250 million inhabitants
is the largest state in India with Bihar coming next with 130 million. Bihar’s
development is hindered by a very rigid caste system, a low rate of literacy
and lack of infrastructure. As a result the state cannot create enough jobs for
its population and so Biharis tend to migrate more than Indians from any other
state. “Bihar represents a case of persistent underdevelopment”, the study
notes.
In contrast, Gujarat, in the west, is the
richest case in the country in terms of per capita wealth. Like its neighbor
Maharashtra, this prosperity is largely due to its achievement in the field of
industry. However this success has tended to find expression in the development
of infrastructure (roads, ports and energy-all of which are highly capital
intensive domains) rather than investments in human resources, as is evident
from the rather low level of education) As a result, inequalities in the state
are not decreasing and Gujarat has not been in a position to promote the IT
sector for which India is still known as a model abroad.” The trajectory of
Gujarat-which Narendra Modi presented as a “model” when he helmed the state between
2001 and 2014-represents a case of highly capital-intensive
infrastructure-based industrialization”, the study observes.
Tamil Nadu has also developed a very robust
industrial sector, but it has relied more on small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) and has invested heavily in human resources. ”Not only are the
inequalities limited but the level of education is also well above average.
This success is also seen as a model and its societal dimension is also
emphasized. The state has capitalized on
the egalitarian ethos of the Dravidians, the low caste locals who emancipated
themselves from the Brahminical elite in the 20th century, arguing
that they were the sons of the soil whereas the upper caste were Aryan
invaders. Tamil Nadu is a case of human resources-based development, combining
industrialization and service economy.
https://odishapostepaper.com/edition/5255/orissapost/page/9
https://epaper.lokmat.com/articlepage.php?articleid=LOKTIME_NPLT_20250318_6_3
https://mediamap.co.in/blog/IndiasEconomicFutureContrastingGrowthPathsofGujaratBiharandTamilNadu
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